Silent film lives! Every year the Pod Baranami Cinema present classic silent film works with new musical interpretations, as well as new silent discoveries and restorations.
Homo Viator
Trains, planes, automobiles, horse-drawn carts… From the dawn of history people were always heading somewhere! The 17th Silent Film Festival (1-4 December) takes us on a magical journey in time and space at Pod Baranami Cinema. We join Buster Keaton for cinema’s most famous locomotive journey (The General, 1926), go on a cruise with the vengeful Black Pirate (1926, dir. Albert Parker) and watch Road to Ernoa (1921, dir. Louis Delluc).
There will also be screenings of films largely unknown to Polish audiences, including the Hungarian melodrama The Exile (1915) directed by Mihály Kertész (better known as Michael Curtiz who went on to direct the legendary Casablanca), short films by the godfather of Croatian cinema Oktavijan Miletić, and the fictionalised documentary In the Land of the Head Hunters depicting the world of the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples, directed by the photographer Edward S. Curtis. The festival also brings us Polish accents: this year we will see the digitally-restored romance The Call of the Sea directed by Henryk Szaro. The film is shown with a soundtrack written by Krzesimir Dębski. Kids will be taken on A Trip to the Moon (1902, dir. Georges Méliès).
(Justyna Skalska, "Karnet" magazine)
